JP2003-54341 A discloses a parking assisting apparatus comprising obstacle detecting means for detecting an obstacle near the vehicle; a vehicle motion calculating section configured to calculate vehicle position and vehicle orientation in a two-dimensional plane based on steering angle and vehicle speed; and a target parking position determining section configured to detect a parking space based on the vehicle motion calculated by the vehicle motion calculating section and the relative positional relationship with respect to the detected obstacle and determine the target parking position.
By the way, in an actual parking situation, drivers generally park vehicles such that the vehicles are appropriately accommodated within the parking section line, while they look at the parking section line painted on the ground to use it as a target.
In this connection, according to the parking assisting apparatus of JP2003-54341 A, since the target parking position is determined only based on the relationship between the vehicle and the obstacle adjacent to the parking space, the problem is that the target parking position which is biased with respect to the parking section line is determined if another vehicle which is detected as an obstacle is parked in a biased manner with respect to the neighboring parking section line, for example.
Although the parking section line can be detected by image recognition or the like using a camera, there may be a situation where the parking section line cannot be detected due to influence of insufficient light at night, insufficient coverage of the camera, snow cover, etc., or the fact that no parking section line is painted in the first place. Thus, it is desirable to be able to determine the target parking position which can be used for the parking assisting even in such a situation.
Furthermore, there is a situation where a target track cannot be generated to guide the vehicle within the parking section line without any bias even in the case where the parking section line can be detected. Thus, it is desirable to be able to determine the target parking position which can be used for the parking assisting even in such a situation.